Host Access to Storage System Metadata

1. A method of a host system processing an I/O operation, the method comprising: receiving the I/O operation originating from an application and directed to a logical location within a logical storage device of a storage system, wherein the storage system includes: a global memory, an internal fabric, and at least one director that controls access to the global memory by the host system over the internal fabric, and wherein the host system is communicatively coupled to the storage system by one or more communication media located externally to the storage system; and the host system determining a global memory address within the global memory of the storage system at which first metadata corresponding to the I/O operation resides, including, if the global memory address is not available on the host system, the host system accessing at least a first indirection layer on the storage system, wherein accessing at least the first indirection layer includes the host system bypassing compute resources of any of the at least one director such that no director compute resources are used to access at least the first indirection layer, by exchanging one or more communications with the global memory of the storage system over the internal switching fabric of the storage system along a communication path from the host system to the global memory that does not include the compute resources of any of the at least one director.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the host system includes a metadata table including one or more entries, each entry associated with a logical location of a logical storage device of the storage system, wherein the method further comprises: querying the metadata table for the global memory address of the first metadata, wherein the host system accessing the at least first indirection layer is performed responsive to determining that the metadata table does not include the global memory address of the first metadata.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the metadata table has capacity to accommodate a predetermined number of entries, the method further comprising: evicting one or more entries from the metadata table over time according to an LRU eviction policy.

4. The method of claim 2 , further comprising: adjusting a size of the metadata table to only have entries for logical locations and/or logical devices having recent I/O activity.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first metadata includes information specifying a physical location on a physical storage device mapped to the logical location.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first indirection layer includes a plurality of pointers to pages of metadata for the logical storage device, the method further comprising: accessing, in global memory, a page descriptor corresponding to a first page of the pages of metadata, the page descriptor specifying: data stored in the first page, or that the first page is free.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein a plurality of indirection layers include the first indirection layer, and wherein the plurality of indirection layers are used to obtain the global memory address of the first metadata.

8. A host system having one or more applications running thereon, the execution of the one or more applications resulting in I/O operations involving data stored on a storage system having an internal switching fabric, the host system comprising: one or more processors; a memory comprising code stored thereon that, when executed, performs a method comprising: receiving an I/O operation originating from a first application of the one or more applications and directed to a logical location within a logical storage device of the storage system, wherein the storage system includes: a global memory, an internal fabric, and at least one director that controls access to the global memory by the host system over the internal fabric, and wherein the host system is communicatively coupled to the storage system by one or more communication media located externally to the storage system; and determining a global memory address within the global memory of the storage system at which first metadata corresponding to the I/O operation resides, including, if the global memory address is not available on the host system, accessing at least a first indirection layer on the storage system, wherein accessing at least the first indirection layer includes bypassing compute resources of any of the at least one director such that no director compute resources are used to access at least the first indirection layer, by exchanging one or more communications with the global memory of the storage system over the internal switching fabric along a communication path from the host system to the global memory that does not include the compute resources of any of the at least one director.

9. The host system of claim 8 , wherein the host system further comprises a metadata table including one or more entries, each entry associated with a logical location of a logical storage device of the storage system, wherein the method further comprises querying the metadata table for the global memory address of the first metadata, and wherein the host system accessing the at least first indirection layer is performed responsive to determining that the metadata table does not include the global memory address of the first metadata.

10. The host system of claim 9 , wherein the metadata table has capacity to accommodate a predetermined number of entries, and wherein the method further comprises evicting one or more entries from the metadata table over time according to an LRU eviction policy.

11. The host system of claim 9 , the method further comprising: adjusting a size of the metadata table adjusting a size of the metadata table to only have entries for logical locations and/or logical devices having recent I/O activity.

12. The host system of claim 8 , wherein the first metadata includes information specifying a physical location on a physical storage device mapped to the logical location.

13. The host system of claim 8 , wherein the first indirection layer includes a plurality of pointers to pages of metadata for the logical storage device, and wherein the method further comprises accessing, in global memory, a page descriptor corresponding to a first page of the pages of metadata, the page descriptor specifying: data stored in the first page, or that the first page is free.

14. The host system of claim 8 , wherein a plurality of indirection layers include the first indirection layer, and wherein the plurality of indirection layers are used to obtain the global memory address of the first metadata.

15. For a system including a host system and a storage system, the host system having one or more applications running thereon, the execution of the one or more applications resulting in I/O operations involving data stored on the storage system, one or more non-transitory computer-readable media, the non-transitory computer-readable media having software stored thereon comprising: executable code that executes on the system and that receives an I/O operation originating from an application and directed to a logical location within a logical storage device of the storage system, wherein the storage system includes: a global memory, an internal fabric, and at least one director that controls access to the global memory by the host system over the internal fabric, and wherein the host system is communicatively coupled to the storage system by one or more communication media located externally to the storage system; and executable code that executes on the system and that determines a global memory address within the global memory of the storage system at which first metadata corresponding to the I/O operation resides, including, if the global memory address is not available on the host system, accessing at least a first indirection layer on the storage system, wherein executable code that accesses at least the first indirection layer includes executable code that initiates bypassing compute resources of any of the at least one director such that no director compute resources are used to access at least the first indirection layer by exchanging one or more communications with the global memory of the storage system over the internal switching fabric along a communication path from the host system to the global memory that does not include the compute resources of any of the at least one director.

16. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15 , wherein the host system includes a metadata table including one or more entries, each entry associated with a logical location of a logical storage device of the storage system, wherein the software further comprises: querying the metadata table for the global memory address of the first metadata, wherein the host system accessing the at least first indirection layer is performed responsive to determining that the metadata table does not include the global memory address of the first metadata.

17. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the metadata table has capacity to accommodate a predetermined number of entries, the software further comprising: evicting one or more entries from the metadata table over time according to an LRU eviction policy.

18. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , the software further comprising: adjusting a size of the metadata table adjusting a size of the metadata table to only have entries for logical locations and/or logical devices having recent I/O activity.

19. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 16 , wherein the first metadata includes information specifying a physical location on a physical storage device mapped to the logical location.

20. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 15 , wherein the first indirection layer includes a plurality of pointers to pages of metadata for the logical storage device, the software further comprising: accessing, in global memory, a page descriptor corresponding to a first page of the pages of metadata, the page descriptor specifying: data stored in the first page, or that the first page is free.